This is Problem-Based Learning. Students don't answer questions about westward expansion — they step inside the problem as stakeholders, and the teacher guides rather than tells. The whole phase runs the problem-solving process named in §113.16(c)(26)(B).
Read the narrative aloud. Read it once for the story, then again for details students will need.
First reaction (not answers yet): what did you notice? What do you wonder? Keep it open — the point is to pull students into the problem.
🧭 How the map opened: the land the Whitfields are eyeing became part of the country through U.S. territorial expansion — read about the National Archives · Lewis & Clark expedition ↗ that first charted the route west (§113.16(c)(4)(C)).
Assign or let students choose a stakeholder. Each will reason from that person's point of view. Every role has something real at stake — including the people whose homelands the trails cross.
You dream of far more land than your family could ever hold back home. Is the promise worth the risk to the people you love?
You have seen hard years. You worry about the danger, about leaving family, and about what going west means for the people already there.
You are ready for adventure and a new life. What are you not yet seeing about the journey ahead?
You have led wagon trains before. You know the routes, the rivers, and the seasons. What must a family do to survive the trail?
This is your homeland. The wagons crossing it affect your people, your water, and the buffalo. What do you want the settlers to understand?
You sell the flour, tools, and oxen families need. What do you honestly tell them they must bring — and what would be false hope?
Build three shared columns on chart paper. This defines the problem and plans the inquiry — the first moves of §113.16(c)(26)(B).
| 💭 Hunches | ✅ Know (from the text) | ❓ Need to know |
|---|---|---|
| Our guesses about what the family should do and how to prepare. | Facts we can point to in the story (it's 1846; Oregon is ~2,000 miles away; the trail is dangerous; the land is already home to Native nations). | Questions we must answer to decide — How long and how dangerous was the trail? What did families need to survive? How did going west affect the Native nations on the route? What made some families choose to stay? |
Turn “Need to know” into the H of KWHL: How will we find out? (which sources, whom to ask). Record it — this is the class's research plan.
Groups pursue their “Need to know” questions using vetted sources (see the facilitator guide for suggested public-domain sources). Students gather and use valid information, applying the source routine they practiced in Phase 2, and paying attention to how people adapted to and modified the land. Keep filling the Learned column of KWHL as answers come in.
Teacher-as-guide moves: answer a question with a question; point to a source, not the answer; ask “How do you know?” and “Whose view is missing?” — especially the perspective of the Native nations on the route.
📚 Investigation sources: DocsTeach · Westward Expansion ↗ · NPS · Oregon Trail stories ↗ · NPS · People of the Trail ↗ · LoC · Encounters at a Cultural Crossroads ↗. Full list + how-to in the facilitator guide.
From their stakeholder's point of view, each group develops a recommendation for whether the Whitfield family should head west — and, if so, how they should prepare — and defends it with evidence. Assessment happens throughout the process, not only here (the reasoning is the point).
Groups present an 8-part problem/solution brief (poster, slides, or spoken):
Close the loop — the evaluate step of the problem-solving process. Discuss across roles so students hear how the same decision looked from every side, weighing the promise of the West against its human cost.
Connect to today & to the standards: people still weigh opportunity, risk, and the effect on others when making big decisions. Name the six steps students just used — that is §113.16(c)(26)(B).
Aligned to (not reproduced from) 19 TAC Ch.113 §113.16; effect sizes from Visible Learning MetaX. The Whitfield narrative is a teaching fiction based on the era.